The wait is nearly over: Holbrook’s new cultural “train” is almost here, and it’s set to pull into the historic BNSF depot next month, opening the site for city-sponsored public art shows and related cultural events for the first time in several decades.
Selected to kick off the series is Holbrook artist Liz Nichols.
A third-generation Holbrook native, Nichols’ prolific commissioned works grace the interior walls of many cultural facilities throughout the area, including the Historic County Courthouse and Petrified Forest National Park. She began her artistry through drawing as a little girl, inspired by a love of horses and her hometown’s Old West culture.
“At first, all I’d draw was horses. I grew up on a huge ranch in the Navajo New Lands, about 35 miles east of Holbrook. When I was a little girl, about 3 years old, I would sneak out of our yard to our horse pasture all the time.”
Nichols attributes her equestrian love to her father, local gunsmith Ron Nichols, who she describes as an “old-time cowboy. He grew up with the Spurlocks, who used to own a ranch in the New Lands. My dad worked for them as a ranch manager when I was in high school, and that’s how I got into it.
“When I had my daughter at 20 years old, I sold all my horses to pay for the medical bills and promised myself once she’s all grown up, I’ll get some horses again.”
Nichols laughed as she recalled, “Well, she had grown up and I still hadn’t gotten any horses again.
“So I said to myself, ‘When I get to be 50 I’m going to buy a horse.’ I’m 54 and I bought a horse last year. Now I have two,’” she related.
Nichols says her family and upbringing also inspired her to be creative and expressive.
“Each of us being the first born of three generations, my brother and I had all eight of our grandparents alive with us growing up. My great-grandfather constructed one of the first houses to be built on Arizona Street in 1919 and moved into it from St. Johns with his family,” said Nichols.
“He used to sit me on his knee and tell me all the Old West stories when I was a little kid, so I just love this area. I love the history, I love all of it, and I feel like I’ve lived it. The stories and the traditions and the culture are an entity.”
Glancing out toward the northwest of town, Nichols noted, “You can look over a hill from here and see all the way to the reservation, and if you want to you can go right to it and walk out there. I stayed on an island in Oahu, Hawaii, for six months; it’s beautiful, there’s gorgeous weather, and you can be barefoot all the time because there are no snakes. But you can’t look out across the ocean and go over to where you’re looking in the distance. You’re stuck on that little island.”
Of the northern Arizona landscape she remarks, “The skies here are intense. I’ll get up in the morning and see the sun come up, and tears will come to my eyes because it moves me so much.”
For the inaugural depot art event, Nichols has on tap a showing of her sketched and watercolor renderings of Holbrook’s Hunt Park and other locales, including Woodruff, Perkins Valley and Joseph City, along with historical Holbrook photographs.
She teased, “These stories and details have always been in our townspeople’s peripheral view. But this time they will be up close, in their faces.”
When she isn’t interpreting Holbrook’s rich, storied landscape through her sketches and paintings, artist Liz Nichols nurtures her passion for quarter horses by spending time with her newest yearling, Dolly. Nichols will be the first featured artist in the upcoming Second Friday Holbrook Depot Art Show series, which opens from 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 8, 2016, at the Historic Holbrook Train Depot.
